Dual-Channel on nForce2 - Worth Doing?

[marks70]

I'm trying to decide on whether to get two 256 megs of Corsair RAM or one 512. Is it worth paying the extra money in order to run dual-channel? Also, does anyone have any links to reviews where they tested performance differences between single and dual-channel operation?

Thanks!

 

[Vette73]

I think the anandtech review showed the gains from dual Ch ram. Some test showed as little as a 3% gain but there were a couple that showed major gains.

So if in doubt, get 2 slabs of 512 ram 😉

 

[Doh!]

There are several reviews that show less than 5% performance increase from Dual Channel in nForce2 chipset boards. I would get the 512 if you're planning to add additional RAM in the future. For AMD boards, dual channel is really effective for the integrated video chipset, though. There's benchmark at MSI website and a few other hardware review websites.

 

[tc17]

I know my post is late in this thread, but was just searching for any more info on this subject.

From the review I read, like the last poster said, its a very small gain with dual unless you are using the integrated graphics.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/nforce2-1vs2channels/

Although I have no idea when that review was written.